After 25 years in South Africa, Emirates is now focusing on rapidly restoring its South African services to pre-pandemic levels, reaching 49 flights a week by May 2023.
The airline’s Senior VP Commercial Operations Africa, Badr Abbas, told a press gathering in Johannesburg this week: “We’re here for the long term and will help support South Africa’s post-pandemic recovery…We’ve prioritised service expansion and are rebuilding our capacity in this market.”
Demand has outstripped capacity across the industry, but relief is on the way. From December 1 this year, Durban will have daily flights to Dubai. From February 1, Cape Town will have double-daily services, and from March 1, 2023, Johannesburg will have three flights a day. This will total 42 flights a week, and the airline says that by May 2023 it hopes to have restored all 49 flights that it had in South Africa pre-pandemic. That’s aside from the daily Harare and Lusaka flights, and Luanda, which will soon go from five a week to daily.
South Africans’ most popular routes via Dubai are the UK, Germany, Turkey, India, Thailand, the US, Saudi Arabia and Dubai. The carrier reports that the bulk of traffic from the South African market is leisure and VFR with the corporate segment taking longer to revive – but Emirates is confident that the segment will start rising soon, as international conferences and face-to-face business meetings are starting to rebound. Another noticeable trend has been short-lead-in bookings, with the bulk of bookings for fulfilment in the following two months.
Emirates’ premium economy product is an important new feature, and it’s the only Gulf airline to field such a product. The carrier is in the process of what it believes is the largest retrofit programme ever, to refit and refresh 120 aircraft with new interiors and premium economy cabins, rolling them out at the rate of four retrofitted A380s a month. South African routes are not yet listed to receive the product, but the premium economy cabin is already available on flights to London Heathrow, Paris and Sydney, with New York (JFK), Auckland, Melbourne, San Francisco and Singapore next in line.
Emirates has an MOU with SA Tourism to jointly promote arrivals into South Africa from key markets in its network. The carrier says it is working with SA Tourism to support travel trade partners and tour operators in its network, and help them develop itineraries, packages and promotions and encourage incentives.
Emirates’ partnerships with local airlines – SAA, Airlink, FlySafair, and CemAir – mean that it is seeing higher feeder demand in the regional and domestic market.
